PHOTO:In the Cut
The phrase “In the cut” speaks to physical isolation. As an idiom it refers to sites that are removed from dense populations, but also applies to places easily within reach, but perhaps less visited. In a more literal sense the phrase has bodily associations that the works in the show tease out in their arrangement within the gallery space. A wound or a mark, the cut also hints at a divide that can then be bridged. Despite the remote locales, interiority and intimacy are factored into the works as well.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gallery Luisotti Archive
The group exhibition “In the Cut” at the Gallery Luisotti is Santa Monica, includes photographs by: Cindy Bernard, Sam Contis, Whitney Hubbs, Chelsea Mosher, and Lisa Ohlweiler. The exhibition addresses the genre of landscape and questions its boundaries. It asks whether living bodies, human and otherwise, can have terrains of their own that echo or inform other views of primarily geological formations. Moreover, in what ways do landscapes work on the bodies within them or condition the viewer to see those bodies? Sites of investigation include a secluded college in the California desert, West Coast nudism camps, and Southern California beaches. The profile of a horse shuttles between flesh and an outcropping of granite rock. A ranch in Riverside is anthropomorphized via specific views of water-bearing channels and the claustrophobia of fallen citruses on the arid floor. Cindy Bernard works across several media including photography, video, performance and, most recently, painting. Current projects include “Vinland”, a meditation on the complex and continually shifting relationships between spaces, social and economic structures, and personal and collective histories and an “episodic” series based on the history of social nudism. Sam Contis portfolios of work have appeared in publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Capricious, and Blind Spot. Whitney Hubbs, is a Los Angeles-based photographer whose mostly black-and-white oeuvre comprises disjointed self-portraits and minimal compositions. Chelsea Mosher is currently visiting faculty in photography at UCLA and CSULB. Lisa Ohlweiler is an American artist whose photographic works explore formal analogies and photographic sequencing creating connections between seemingly disparate subjects, she has been strongly influenced by the Southern California landscape, culture, film industry, and quality of light. Existing in a space between active engagement and cool observation, her photographs create an impression akin to the moment when a word used everyday suddenly becomes strange to the ear and demands to be contemplated as through it were heard for the first time.
Info: Curator: Michael Peña, Gallery Luisotti, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Building A2, Santa Monica, Duration: 30/7-24/9/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:30-18:00, http://galleryluisotti.com
